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Little George Street, Bristol

Dandara Living

Scheme

Little George Street is Dandara Living’s fourth development site in Bristol and its first purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) scheme in the city.

The site sits within Bristol City Council’s Frome Gateway Regeneration Area and the plans include new student homes, flexible community space and affordable workspaces. The proposals also open up access to the River Frome – supporting the council’s vision for a riverside walkway.

As one of the first applications to come forward in Frome Gateway Regeneration Area, the proposals were high profile and it was vital we acknowledge and build on the extensive community engagement already undertaken around the Frome Gateway masterplan.

The surrounding neighbourhood is home to a mix of homes, businesses, creative venues and community initiatives and key neighbours include Albaseera Bristol Masjid (Mosque) and Logos House, where the Salvation Army provides accommodation and support for homeless people.

Strategy

It was important to take a tailored approach to engagement, reflecting the wide variety of neighbours and their close involvement in the council’s masterplans for the area.

While there is clear demand in Bristol for well-managed student accommodation to help free up housing and create high-quality places for students to live, proposals for student accommodation are often controversial.

It was vital that engagement activity acknowledged the challenges but also highlighted opportunities around properly integrating students into the community. We focused on working with the local community and the city’s universities to understand how Dandara Living gets this right.

Our activity centred on engagement with the established local community – through direct public engagement but also through community leaders. We also brought student voices into the conversation around community integration.

Through a project website, newsletter to local residents and a social media campaign, we asked people to share their ideas for the ground floor community space and new outside public spaces and insight on the perceived challenges and opportunities around student accommodation.

We established a direct relationship between Dandara Living and key stakeholders, including Albaseera Bristol Masjid (Mosque) and neighbouring creative venues to initiate meaningful conversations about the proposals and the future design, use and long-term custodianship of the community spaces. We also took the proposals directly into the community, holding a drop-in event with the project team at a local arts venue and at the mosque to enable open and inclusive discussion around the plans.

We wanted to gather views on the proposals from current students and broaden the discussion on integration. We invited students from the University of the West of England’s School of Architecture and Environment to share their first-hand account of student housing, capture their priorities for accommodation and gather feedback on the proposals for Little George Street.

We also encouraged Dandara Living to contribute to the University of Bristol’s TRUUD research programme, which is working to understand current decision-making systems for urban development and looking at the impact of where people live on their health.

Outcome

Our campaign demonstrated how Dandara Living is working with people in this part of Bristol and the universities to understand how it can bring students and communities together.

The relationships we built with the neighbouring community and businesses facilitated meaningful conversations about the local need and future uses of the ground floor. We uncovered enthusiastic support for affordable workspace and flexible space to support local community groups – with an emphasis on supporting young people, learning and training.

In response to the feedback gathered, Dandara Living was able to adapt the plans for the ground floor space, to ensure its suitability for future community uses.

We shared updates with local media throughout the engagement activity – demonstrating the breadth of conversations being undertaken and underlining the need and appetite for PBSA as well as how engagement was shaping plans for community areas.

At the time of submission, Dandara Living was engaged in active conversations with several groups and businesses, based in the local area who are interested in being involved in the long-term running of the ground floors spaces. Dandara Living is also looking to support several local initiatives, which were identified through engagement, to support wider positive social impact in the community.

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